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Fires are not a major cause of erosion. I'm not sure why you would think that - fires do not obliterate the organic material that binds soils together. You are
by Thetawaves 6y ago
Fires are not a major cause of erosion. I'm not sure why you would think that - fires do not obliterate the organic material that binds soils together. You are conflating human land clearing with forest fires.
Any loss of plant life due to a forest fire is quickly replaced as new growth is able to take advantage of new light/water/nutrient resources.
- mythrwy 6y agoThere's a reservoir near where I live (SW US) that was nearly filled in from erosion after severe fires. They had to go in and clean it out with equipment. You can see the large scale erosion on the hillsides. This was 100% caused by the fire. But, it was a massive uncontrolled fire. A lower temperature controlled burn may (probably?) not have caused that. Also if it had not occurred on such steep slopes maybe erosion wouldn't have been such a problem.
- Thetawaves 6y agoWhat impact did this have? Is this a problem because humans built a reservoir there? Have those ecosystems recovered? How long ago? And what of those ecosystems down stream that would have benefited from the influx in nutrients?
- mythrwy 6y agoOther then impacting the human made reservoir (and roads and other structures) I don't know that it was a real problem at all (for the natural world), you may have a point. The erosion was quite heavy though as the fires were followed by very heavy (and unusual) torrential rains. You could see the deep channels in the slopes and the roads were also covered with sediment. They had to bring in heavy machinery for that as well. The area is recovering nicely now, it's grass with small saplings and I was up there this year and didn't really see any new erosion at all.